


Smile

by peachmeowzipan



Series: Chrysanthemums and Bubble Gum [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Swapfell (Undertale), Brief drug usage, First Kiss, Fluff, Light Hurt/Comfort, Other, Papyrus smokes monster weed, Reader is not Frisk or Chara, Romance, gender neutral reader, shadows of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25225927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachmeowzipan/pseuds/peachmeowzipan
Summary: A slight upturn to his teeth, a small crease at the corner of his sockets, and when he stopped to glance back at you, he almost looked bashful, but curious, and that smile had gone soft.“What is it?”
Relationships: Papyrus (Undertale)/Reader
Series: Chrysanthemums and Bubble Gum [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1828087
Comments: 10
Kudos: 80





	Smile

**Author's Note:**

> yeah, it's another one of these  
> i wonder if everybody can tell who my comfort character is  
>   
> stay safe out there 💕💕  
> thank you for reading!

You'd never really seen him smile, not once since you'd met him. It wasn't something you ever brought up with him, because it just didn't seem like something you should call attention to. He just didn't smile, teeth always either pulled down at the corners or laying straight. (Alternatively, his brother never _stopped_ smiling, a razor sharp crescent moon that stretched across his scarred, skeletal face like a bad omen. Like night and day.)

The gaze above his fangs was vague and unfocused in a way that made a lot of people who didn't know him think he wasn't actually paying attention, when in reality he remembered everything you said, down to the most minute detail. Subtext and underlying meanings never escaped him, he was as sharp as the teeth in his skull.

Monsters weren't really allowed to _live_ in Ebott City yet, but you'd met on a rainy day in the middle of traffic, when your umbrella had turned inside out with the wind and blown straight out of your hand, twirling and twisting its way over the crowd and right up into the sky. In that moment, as you watched it go, all of the stress you'd been pushing down for months finally came to a roiling boil and spilled up and over the edge of the pot, a bubbling mess. You'd burst into tears right there on the sidewalk, sobbing into your open palms, and he'd been by your side as suddenly as a clap of thunder overhead, a complete stranger at the time, a terrifying monster with sharp teeth and glowing violet lights shining out from darkened sockets, but he'd led you off the sidewalk to an overhang that shielded you from the rain, let you cry against the brick wall while he stood nearby and just waited.

His gaze had been unsettling at first, before you'd really gotten to know him. Unwavering purple lights, a little hazy, a little far away, but unblinking, always staring for maybe just a little too long, sometimes piercing right through you and speaking volumes without saying a word.

His name was Papyrus, and it didn't take you long to fall in love with him.

It was subtle, the first smile you'd seen grace his jaw, and it had left you staring, stopping in your tracks for a moment to recover from the surprise of the moment. You were walking with him at night, the sky a clear canopy of stars above you on the mountain. It was quiet, up here. Peaceful, with so many areas that were just empty, save for the wildlife that shared the mountain with monsters.

A slight upturn to his teeth, a small crease at the corner of his sockets, and when he stopped to glance back at you, he almost looked bashful, but curious, and that smile had gone soft.

“What is it?” he'd asked, and you hadn't known how to answer for a moment, were afraid to say anything for fear of scaring the moment away, like a fragile, fluttering bird, or a fawn that was cautiously grazing close by.

“I– nothing,” you'd said finally, taking the extra few steps it took to catch up to him, and you beamed up at his softened expression, “I'm just having fun.”

That had made his sockets list slightly, the lights inside flaring a little brighter before he hummed and looked out over the trees, towards the city that was glowing bright in the distance.

“Yeah,” he murmured quietly, and started walking again with you tagging along by his side, still smiling like he didn't even realize he was doing it. “Like walkin' with you.”

You'd grabbed onto his arm on impulse then, and the gentle violet blush that flowered across his cheekbones had made his features look infinitely softer, infinitely sweeter. It made something open up inside your chest, like a flower in the sunlight, petals dancing around each other and spreading apart to let the light in, to catch it and hold it for a while, to keep it close and feel that warmth. It almost hurt, to look at him like this, but in the sweetest of ways, and it took all of your strength not to kiss him right there.

As much of the night as you could manage was spent walking under moonlight, and it was while you were sitting with him on a fallen log that he'd reached out with gloved claws to gently smooth a crease at your brow, expression tinged with a fondness that took your breath away as he watched you struggle to keep your eyes open. Tiredness and frustration won out in the end as you grinned wryly up at him, allowed him to guide you to your feet. He took a step with you and brought the both of you to your living room. He held you for a moment to say goodnight, the embrace lingering with you long after he'd gone home.

You'd missed that sweetness the next time you saw him in the broad light of day, that feather-light vulnerability you'd seen in the dark privacy of Mt. Ebott gone, replaced with that same stoic mask that his hardened expression seemed trained into. The moment that night had felt like a dream, one that you might never see again, but you kept it close, sighing into your palm as you watched the sky grow lighter in the morning. Your eyes were trained on the view from your window, but you were seeing a shy smile and a violet blush instead, imagining that gentle touch over and over later, in the quiet parts of the day.

You started to catch fleeting glimpses of that smile now and then after that, mostly when the two of you were alone, reclining in your apartment or the shadowed solitude of his room, walking the empty streets, or wandering the mountain and parks at night. Just two lost souls moving like ghosts through the abandoned parts of the city, two wavering, thin candle flames, flickering in tandem.

“Was jus' thinkin' of somethin' cute,” he rasped gently, because he knew you were staring at him. His teeth were pulled up into a lazy grin, his gaze not on you, but the stars overhead as the two of you lounged on the roof of his house. The shingles were rough like sandpaper when you shifted your palm, glancing away sheepishly before shamelessly returning to watching his expression, fingers inching towards his cautiously, but never touching.

“Me too,” you said without thinking, voice soft, and he closed his sockets for a moment, turned his skull to face you before he opened them again, violet lights burning like hot coals inside. You hunched in on yourself slightly, but didn't break eye contact, expression almost playful as he huffed out a breath, leaning towards you slowly.

“Yer so pretty,” he murmured, lifted one clawed hand to gently cradle the side of your face, and you leaned into his palm, turned your face to hide half of your expression there. He flexed his fingers, then slid closer to you on the roof and wrapped his other arm around you, held you loosely for a moment as he gazed down at you. His expression melted as he drew closer, like a secret, just for you.

“You're gorgeous,” you breathed back, reaching up to hold his hand against your face, eyes wide to drink it all in, your other hand creeping into his sweater to grip loosely at his shirt. You watched his eye lights flare once more, found you had to swallow before you could speak again. “You're beautiful, wonderful, the sweetest person I've ever–”

He cut you off with his teeth, and you kissed him under the stars, running your tongue along those sharp edges, tantalizingly dangerous, but as harmless as could be. When you pulled away, it was only to lean in again, and you pressed gentle kisses along the jagged line of his mouth, eyes fluttering shut as you sighed against his skull, let out a soft noise when he buried his face into your neck, nuzzled and huffed against your skin. He squeezed you against him, laid you down on the roof and grazed his teeth gently over your throat, nipped playfully at your ear and made you squawk and giggle into the crisp night air.

You spent that night with him and woke burrowed in the sheets of the bed that he never really used, a soft cocoon that smelled like him. He'd been smoking in the window when you opened your eyes, rib cage bare, the scent of strawberry smoke drifting down to you and tickling slightly at your nose. He wasn't even wearing gloves, sharp, chipped claws on full display, and his bones seemed to glow in the light, a soft blue of early morning.

His sockets were shut as he savored some secret feeling, but after a moment, he turned his skull in your direction, cracked them open to smile your way, and you ducked down into the blankets slightly, grinning playfully as he put his joint out, left it behind to sit on the window sill. He made his way over, bent down low over you and knelt on the bed, and your lips parted to greet him with a sigh.

“I love seeing you smile,” you said quietly some time later, as the two of you sat on the hood of his car. It was very late in the day; the world was turning shades of orange and you were watching the sunset together, leaning against one another with your arms linked, your fingers threaded together. You were stroking the back of his hand gently, and he closed his sockets again, teeth quirking up almost automatically as you spoke the words. He turned his face into your hair and breathed out a hot gust of air that made you giggle. “You never used to smile much... But now, I think if you ever stopped, I wouldn't know what to do.”

That made him huff out a chuckle, and he nipped gently at your ear.

“Nyeah, thought I'd try it out,” he rumbled against your scalp, tone mildly amused, “See if I like it... M'getting used to it....”

You didn't say anything to that, just tracing the bones of his hand through his glove over and over, up and down from the knuckle to the wrist, and he was quiet as well, just breathing against your skin, fingers twitching slightly every now and then. He tilted his skull forward a little, made a quiet sound at the back of his jaw as you watched the sky burn red for a moment and then melt into shades of pink and violet and blue.

“You missed it,” you murmured when the blue was turning dark, light leeching from the world, and his shoulders shook with silent laughter.

“Already seen a million'a those,” he said quietly, nudging your scalp with his nasal ridge.

“It doesn't get old,”you replied gently, and he nuzzled your hair, humming in agreement.

“I'll watch it next time,” he said, his free hand coming to rest on top of yours, the one that had been absently tracing his bones through his glove this whole time. “And the time after that too, maybe.”

“You know,” you said thoughtfully, glancing down at your joined hands, all layered over one another as darkness swallowed the world, “I don't think I ever watched one all the way through until I met you.”

“Yeah?” he murmured. You nodded.

“I don't know if I ever told you that,” you went on softly, resting your full weight against him, and he sighed, “I never even set foot on the mountain until you showed it to me.”

He hummed, skull stilling, and he reached up to hold you with his free arm. You shared a moment of silence, and you closed your eyes, letting him take his arm back to wrap around you as well, just in time for the breeze to turn cold, the night air going from pleasant to chilly from your vantage point overlooking the city.

“Never... had much reason to smile underground,” he said quietly after a moment, voice rasping softly through the otherwise-silent air, “Kinda... got used to not smiling. Not. Feeling.” Here he gripped you a little tighter, and you brought a hand up automatically to grasp at his jacket, rubbed your face on his shoulder. “You smile all the fuckin' time... and you don't glow, but. Fuck,” he paused to lower his voice, huffed out a quiet breath, “It's like... you stole a piece of the sun and hid it away in your smile. You... switch it on, and... I've seen your whole _face_ light up, as soon as you see me, and it's....”

You had to swallow through the thickness in your throat, buried your face in his jacket as he reached up to stroke your hair.

“Like... a secret... that you tell everybody, but it still feels...” he trailed off again, squeezed you a little tighter. “Like... when I saw the sun for the first time,” his voice became threadbare and small, and he ducked his head against you slightly, almost as if he were hiding. “You... make it easier.”

“Papyrus, I love you,” you said to his chest suddenly, and you heard his vertebrae click together once, high up near his jaw, his teeth parting against your scalp. “I'm so in love with you it _hurts_ , sometimes.”

“Aw, hey,” he made that clicking noise again, voice faltering and fading. He pulled you into his lap instead, pressed his face into the crook of your neck and held you close. For some reason, you couldn't stop crying, and he shushed you and rocked you back and forth, stroking your hair, your back, nuzzling your skin.

“I _love_ you,” you said again, and he nodded, pulling back to smile so sweetly you felt your heart throb as if it might tear, and, “I love you so much,” you mumbled wetly. He reached up to wipe your tears away, sockets creasing with affection. It made you cough out a sob, and, breath hitching, you asked, “Why– Why can't I stop– _crying?”_

“I don't know,” he murmured in reply, leaning forward to press his forehead against yours, violet lights shining bright in the dark, “But I'll be right here until you're done. And even after that, maybe.”

“And after _that?_ ” you sobbed, clinging to him as he continued to rock you back and forth. He hummed, as if pretending to think about it, grinning widely as he stroked your face.

“Always,” he whispered, leaning forward to catch your tears with sharp, pointed fangs. He shushed you again, nuzzled your face and made you giggle in spite of yourself. “There ya go. Just smile, alright? Can you smile for me? 'Cause I love you, too...

“There ya go,” he said, and your laughter bubbled out like stars.

**Author's Note:**

> i could wait a thousand hours  
> stay the same in sun and showers  
> pick apart a hundred flowers  
> [just to be quiet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXQqHzbHCYI)


End file.
